Diabolicum
The Dark Blood Rising

The Dark Blood Rising was released in 2001 under the Italian label Code666 and represents the last full-length album (and in my opinion, the masterpiece) for this Swedish band, formed in 1994 and still active. The genre offered is a fairly clean Industrial Black Metal, compatible with the production of a Black album, and very fast, enriched with keyboards and various samples, which contribute to making the offering very interesting, even for those less passionate about the more extreme sounds. The band's mastermind is the ingenious Sasrof, already known for his collaborations with Aborym and Nattefrost of Carpathian Forest in the band Bloodline, who takes care of the guitar, bass, and drum machine, which is the stylistic choice that most characterizes Diabolicum and contributes most to making this album cold and mechanical.

The album opens with "March of the Misanthrope", an intro song that in its two minutes already perfectly provides an idea of how this album sounds: saturated and broken guitars, minimal but effective keyboards, drum machine pushed to the max, continuous breaks, and spoken samples. It continues with "Heavens Die", obsessive, robotic, where the main role continues to be played by a cold and perfect drum machine, and which turns into a drum 'n bass part midway through the song, accompanied by a dark and martial voice, only to resume faster than before, while singer Kvarforth (also in Shining) assaults the verses, alternating between hallucinatory screams and more growling parts. Next is "...", another sample that introduces "The Hatecrowned Retaliation", a more canonical song, very fast, with icy mid-tempos, which slows towards the end only to conclude with a very fast, hallucinatory, absurd, and chilling solo. "The War Tide (All Out Genocide)" starts off rhythmically, explodes and then transforms, becoming minimal, again with trance-techno parts, female samples, slowdowns, bursts, solo, blast-beat, solo, almost thrash-like riffs, in short: chaos turned into song and the result is nonetheless extremely enjoyable. The title track starts immediately; a beautiful and inspired keyboard opening, drums, guitars, and voice joining in, and the song takes shape, pressing and desolate in its mechanical (im)perfection; the fade-out gives way to "The Sound of the Horns Of Reprisal", not a song but a declaration of war, shouted with firmness and the strength of despair. It’s time for "Bloodspawn", in my opinion, the highlight of the album, where the usual artificial drum is accompanied by a paranoid keyboard riff and by cutting and distorted guitars strained to the utmost, with a hellish voice alternating with clean female voices and world war sounds that replace the drum entirely midway through the song, and while a weak, sickly arpeggio accompanies them, the solo kicks in like a cannon shot and the song resumes in all its power. "The Song of Suffering" offers us a moment of rest, with its very slow and paranoid advance, the beautiful continuous riff, clean voices, and a final solo that is not technical, but very heartfelt. The last real song of the album is "Into the Dementia", a song with a thrash flavor, very fast and raw, which concludes with a very martial drum-keyboard finale. It all ends with "The Nemesis Speaks...", a spoken piece that tells us very simply: "There is no forgiveness unless blood is shed". As you can see, the themes of the album are those dear to the genre: war, misanthropy, but above all post-apocalyptic scenarios, cold and desolate deserts, anti-human. Scenarios in which Diabolicum are accustomed to roaming and of which they know how to see the fascinating and poetic side, of which they feed, to then transform feelings into notes.

I consider this CD a very sincere and very valid work and recommend it to any genre enthusiast who seeks to enrich their knowledge; for the layperson, I don't think it's a very suitable album, as it's very complex and not of immediate understanding, and certainly represents, in the evolution of the genre, not a beginning, but a milestone.